Wednesday, January 22, 2014

–by Shauna Aura Knight
The question, “Should Pagans charge for services/rituals/events/classes”
comes up with some frequency within our community. One of my activist
goals is looking at underlying difficulties and assumptions in our
culture and how that impacts us.
Pagans (and people, for that matter) have a really unhealthy relationship with money.
It’s one of our cultural “shadows.” Any shadow causes us communal
grief. For me, activism is about looking at those cultural shadows and
working with them. What are our current assumptions about
money? How do those assumptions get in the way of healthy communities
and future community resources?Underlying Assumptions“Pagans are broke.” What I think is actually means is, “Pagans
have a complicated and unhealthy relationship with money and get
recalcitrant about paying for things.”
There’s a spectrum of assumptions about money. On one end, you have
the idea that “Charging for spiritual work is bad.” On the other end, “I
should be paid reasonably for my time.”
What I’m not addressing in that spectrum is obvious extortion and
unethical practices, including people who charge exorbitant money for a
dangerously-facilitated sweat lodge, or people who say, “You’re cursed
but I can lift it for a mere $1,000,” or people who embezzle, or
manipulate people.Now–while I’m not addressing the unethical folks, they impact
our assumptions. Many Pagans fear donating to a group because they’ve
seen the largess and corruption of the churches of their youth, and,
they’ve seen various Pagan leaders fail to ethically handle money.
I’m focusing on ethical Pagan leaders and teachers who feel that they
should be able to charge for their time. After seeing several online
discussions basically saying that anyone who charges for spiritual work is bad, or that spiritual work should always be free, I thought that a deeper discussion on money would serve.
The idea that “money is bad” shackles the Pagan community, holding us back and making us less effective in the kind of work many of our groups would like to be able to achieve.What is Money?
A root challenge with this issue is that we need to define what money
actually is. In the dominant culture, money is power, certainly. Big
corporations, banks, and rich politicians control our laws. Religious
institutions like the Catholic church have vast amounts of wealth. It’s
no surprise that many have a knee-jerk reaction that “money is bad.”
But what is money? Money is, in essence, energy. It’s a representation of time and work.Ignoring income tax, if you make $10 an hour, then a $5 cup of coffee reflects a half hour of your effort.
Money is neither good nor bad, it’s simply an easier exchange rate
than a chicken and a basket of tomatoes. Barter is, at its core, money.
It’s resources being traded for other resources. Money isn’t inherently
bad any more than the chicken you raised is bad. It’s just an
agreed-upon exchange rate.But “Real Witches” Never Charged
Completely untrue. If we look at our ancestors, the Witch/Shaman/Druid/Priest/Healer of the tribe was paid in the form of a tithe from the tribe.It
might be a chicken, fur, or seat at the dinner table, or help building
their home. It’s still payment. They couldn’t have focused on serving
their community in that capacity without their community providing their
upkeep.
Money is not a dirty thing. Money represents time spent working.What Do Pagan Events Cost?
Let’s start with supplies. Candles, herbs, printing out handouts, food for the group. Is it fair to ask the group leader who’s already spent time organizing rituals and classes to pay out of pocket for all of that? Many
people feel even charging for supplies is bad. Imagine a small group or
a public ritual; perhaps money is donated, or members donate the
supplies. It’s simple–those are hard costs, someone has to pay them,
it’s just a matter of whom.
If it’s a public ritual, like my upcoming Imbolc in Chicago, money
must be raised to pay for the $300 daily rental. We haven’t even gotten
to additional costs, like a Meetup.com group, a web site, or printing
flyers.
When talking about teachers charging, that’s usually where the fisticuffs begin.What do I Charge?
For a public event like Imbolc, which has a ritual and workshops, I ask
for a sliding scale donation, $5-$25, no one turned away for lack of
funds. I feel it’s important to make these events open to people
regardless of ability to pay.At the same time, I can’t afford to foot the bill if an event doesn’t break even. It’s
utterly unfair to ask clergy that have put in hours to plan, host, and
cleanup an event to also spend money to cover the costs.Traveling TeachersThe subject of money and charging for
events and classes is very much on my mind because of recent events in
my own life. I was recently in a car accident, and without getting into
insurance details, the accident was not my fault but I won’t receive any
money for a new car.How is this relevant to charging for classes?
At least 75%-90% of what I used my car for was to run Pagan events in
Chicago, and, to travel and teach at Pagan events. Now I have
obligations to travel and teach at several events in the coming months,
and many of these are not events I can now easily get to.
Let’s take a step back to assumptions like all Pagan authors are
getting rich off of the community, and Pagans who teach at festivals
make a lot of money.
When I travel to larger conferences and festivals, I pay my own
travel and hotel costs. At some festivals where I’m headlining, I get
gas money. I teach weekend-long intensives where I get gas money, and
maybe a $200 stipend. However, looking at all of these, I’m actually operating at a loss.Why?
Car repairs.
If I drive 8 hours to teach for a weekend for gas money, I’m out the
cost of an oil change. Add in $300 for new brakes and other car
repairs…it all adds up. The past years I’ve paid thousands of dollars in
car repairs for the pleasure of spending hours on the road to teach
mostly without pay.Why Would I Do That?
It’s the calling of my soul. There are so many groups out there
desperate for help with leadership and community building, or learning
to facilitate more potent rituals that will inspire their community. I’m
a total sucker for a leader who messages me and says, “I loved your
workshop at Pagan Spirit Gathering, and our local community is having so
many problems but I don’t know if we can afford to pay you…”
So I tell them I can do it for gas money. Often, it’s that leader who’s paying my gas money out of pocket because they are afraid to charge anyone. “If I charge, no one will come,” they confide.I admire the folks who do this–even while I regret that they continue enabling a dysfunctional pattern in our communities.Consequences
I’ve been writing topics of Pagan leadership because I think they are
crucial. For instance, this blog post now. Am I getting paid for the 3
or so hours it takes me to write one of these? Nope. I do it because I’m
called. I think that’s the essence of any deep calling–we’d do it
whether or not we’re being paid.
I have done this work without pay for years. I’ve managed by living
simply and other creative means. But it’s put me, financially, where I
absolutely can no longer do this work without pay. What I charge is not
enough.
Here is the crux of the issue. Many Pagans whine about not having
access to things that other faiths have, but there’s a core reason for
it–they aren’t willing to pay for it. Pagans
are starting to want access to leadership training, and I’m thrilled to
offer that. However, taking my time to offer that–driving 4-8 hours–my
time spent teaching–preparing for the workshop–it’s rather a lot of
time. It’s a part-time job, full time if you add in writing articles,
blog posts, answering leadership questions on email or skype.
It’s work I love, but if I can’t make a living doing it, I can’t continue.
Do you get excited when Circle Sanctuary takes on a local school
principle discriminating against a Pagan student ? Good. But, where do
they get the time to do that? How does Selena Fox have the time to call
people going through a crisis, or go to their hospital to sit with them
while they’re dying?
Circle charges money for events. The money they raise through events,
and through donations, allows them to pay staffers to do this work full
time.Fear and Values
This goes back to values–what we value. What we spend money on. I get
frustrated to tears when I see Pagans attend my classes and not donate
anything, or donate on the lower end of a sliding scale ($5 for a full
weekend of instruction, where the upper rate would be more like $150 a
person) and then drop $5 on coffee, $25 on lunch, and $40 on a couple of
books at the Pagan bookshop.
I don’t expect everyone to drop $150 on a weekend. That’s why it’s at
the upper range of a sliding scale, which functions like a tithe. Those
who can pay $5 are welcome. Those who can pay $75-$150 are paying into
the scholarship fund, helping the less abundant to be able to attend.
If there’s 20 attendees, gas money is $100, and the space rental is $200 for the weekend, and I get $200, that means two things.

Each person needs to pay around $25, but sliding scale means that
folks who can only afford to pay $5 can attend as long as a few people
are paying at the middle or top of the scale ($75-$150)

It also means I’m making about $100 for four days of my time.Figure
in an oil change, car insurance, and some money for inevitable car
repairs. One day is spent traveling to the event, one traveling home,
and then 2 days I’m teaching. That doesn’t count the hours spent working
with the event organizers consulting on what classes to offer, crafting
class descriptions, helping promote the event via Facebook and Email,
or the time it takes me to prepare the classes.

That makes it maybe more like $100 for one work week. Still think I’m charging too much?
I know that most groups out there can’t afford more. But if I can’t
charge for my work, I can’t afford to do it. This isn’t about me and my
challenges, this is about money and what we as individuals and as a
community have decided we value, what we are willing to pay for. It’s
about what resources we want for our community, for our future.“If you charge for your work you aren’t really being spiritual.”Having gone through
several years living below the poverty line to be able to bring this
work out to my community, I have a few four-letter words in mind for
that sentiment. There are many of us out there that
just want to run an Imbolc or Beltane event without panicking the whole
night before about whether we’ll break even on space rental. Others of
us who want to teach and write and offer our skills up but we need to
make a living if we’re going to devote our time to it. “If you’re trying to get paid then you aren’t in it for service.”“You could be doing other things for money and still serving your community.”
“If you were really dedicated to spirit, spirit would take care of you.”
“You shouldn’t expect any money for your work.”
“All spiritual work should be free.”
“If you’re really serving spiritual community, you wouldn’t need to advertise your services.”
“You should just be motivated by love for your community, not a paycheck.”
Would I do this work without pay? Yes, absolutely. I did, and I
have. Where did it leave me? Financially stuck between a rock and a hard
place. Yes, I made those choices, so I bear that responsibility, but,
it’s not something I choose to do going forward.What do you Value?
If you want to see the Pagan community mature, if you want more services
and education available, or Pagan-focused meeting spaces and community
centers, if you want advocates for Pagan rights…they have a cost. Do you
value some of these things?
Think about your relationship to money, what you value. Begin talking
about money in your community. Let’s move past this myth that Pagans
are broke and explore our relationship to tithing, donating, and paying
for needed services.
There’s the saying, “This is why we can’t have nice things.” I think
that we can build amazing resources for future generations, if we can
get past our shadows around money.For further reading:
Here’s a blog post that I wrote going into more depth on this topic.In the next days on my main blog http://www.shaunaaura.wordpress.com I’ll be posting a series on Pagan leadership, with several articles focusing on Pagans, fundraising, and paying for events.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Paganism is a big tent comprised mainly by those with
an independent mindset or unconventional thinkers. As a direct
result there is a certain tendency for resistance to anyone seeking
to claim a leadership position that goes further than their own
particular group. Nonetheless, there is no shortage of those seeking
to be the 12 inch trout in the 13 inch puddle. You've seen them,
they are the relentless self promoters. During the heyday of what I
call the Witchcrap books from the late 70's and most of the 80's many
of them cranked out book after book after book often based simply in
the old table of correspondences and offering little in the way of
actual information that could not be summed up completely in two or
three paragraphs.

But they sold, boy did they sell. Today we can
communicate widely and instantly via the internet with little
requirement beyond a computer and the willingness to use it and the
bottom fell out of the Witchcrap book industry. Getting published
today requires actual ideas and original thought or enough resources
to self publish which requires work. But promoting yourself only
requires dedication towards flooding as many Pagan venues as you can
with tales of your wonderfulness making your name familiar to a large
number of seekers, no actual deeds required. In case you aren't
getting my point, this 'taint leadership.

Let's be honest here, an awful lot of people come to
Paganism seeking personal empowerment in a world that seems pretty
much out of control and they first thing they want to learn is magic
that can give them some sort of personal power over others. They are
the ones that keep buying the Witchcrap spell books and will flood
Pagan venues with requests for spells and healing energies for things
they should be able to handle in a mundane fashion. Others come
seeking more, ego gratification out of a lack of self-respect. I
remember many years ago when I was a gypsy nursing aide encountering a
young lady working in a nursing home who was always wearing black and
had occult jewelry covering everything. She sought me out one break
and told me how powerful she was, how sensitive to others energy she
was and implying I should be in awe of her. She had no idea I was a
lifelong Pagan myself and I didn't tell her but I ran into her
doubles later on all over the internet.

Those who do are those like the
ever popular Starhawk who lives what she believes and the late Issac
Bonewits who contributed many many original ideas on magical practice
and leadership and wrote on bad leadership, cult identification and the concept of
antagonists as borrowed from a gifted Christian writer on the
subject. Laurie Cabot is a Pagan leader regardless of what you might
think of her personal style. But there are a tonne of what Issac
called “big nosed Pagans” out there who do little more than
promote themselves.

Most of you will be familiar with the Maetreum's seven
year long battle for legal recognition in property tax equality with
Christian churches despite being incorporated under New York
religious corporate law and fully IRS recognition as a church and
religious charity. You can count on the fingers of one hand the
number of landmark cases regarding Paganism in the past thirty years
and this has been one. One of the lessons we learned in the process
is the utter worthlessness of the various Pagan advocacy groups when
the rubber hits the road. NONE of them were there for us, not a
single one! No legal advice, no references for a decent attorney, no
legal representation. Not even help raising much needed funds for
our legal fees. Individual Pagans helped with raising money, some
non-advocacy Pagans groups contributed, but not one of those who
claim a reputation for advocacy would so much as talk to us other
than one self styled Pagan legal expert who wrote and said “buy my
book, buy my book!” which as it turns out had not a single bit of
relevant advice in it. When the initial ruling went against us due
to extreme bigotry on the part of the judge, this “expert”
announced she was going to write a "scholarly" review of the decision.
We talked on FaceBook and I offered to provide the background and
even documents on the case which was ignored. She called our
attorney (without permission) for details resulting in our attorney
calling me and asking if I knew this person and was she really a
lawyer because her ignorance of the basics of law was staggering, her
words not mine.

She wrote the article based solely on the decision of
the judge with zero background material and even trashed me because
the judge said I was not credible. That claim was on a single aspect
of the case regarding the number of hours I put in a week on my
duties as a priestess and he HAD to do that in order to ignore a
prior, directly on point case in New York law in order to rule
against us. I testified an entire day and everything else I
testified to was repeated by two other priestesses in direct
testimony. She had no way of knowing this. She had no way of
knowing that during the years before the actual trial, the town
officials had made one expression of bigotry after another to the
press because she couldn't be bothered to read the twenty plus main
stream media stories on the case, one in the New York Times. That
the town's attorney, in direct violation of Federal and State law,
repeatedly and endlessly challenged our legitimacy as a religion.
Nope, she declared we were not discriminated against and simply not
worthy. When we won the appeal she had declared we had zero chance
of winning, she made a comment on a blog entry about the win that she
remained skeptical! Of an Appellate level win! Talk about
arrogance. It would not amount to a hill of beans except that her
damn article really slowed down fund raising for the money we needed
to file the appeal which we mostly had to raise ourselves because now
much of the Pagan community considered our case hopeless. Real world
harm from someone's ego that nearly shortchanged one of the
significant wins in Pagan legal history.

This is the problem with the self styled leaders of our
community. They can do actual real world harm. If you are trying to
figure out who is a Pagan leader, look to what they actually do, not
claim to do in the real world. By their deeds you shall know them.

Monday, January 20, 2014

A recent article about our long long legal battle with
the Town of Catskill pointed out

“the views and practices of their organization (the
Maetreum of Cybele) vary widely from those of many “Pagan” and
other minority religious groups”

This is true and it occurs to me a lot of
misunderstandings actually surround that basic statement that should
be discussed. I was the principle founder of what we call the
Cybeline Revival and it does differ in many respects from most of the
category it is lumped in with, neo-Paganism. First of all it is a
theology based on historic research that tries to re create the basis
of the Mother Goddess traditions of the ancient world. It is not
about “the craft” as so many modern neo-Pagan groups are. That
is not to say our priestesses are not skilled in the craft, most of
us are. Rather that witchcraft is not the focus of what we do, what
we believe and how we practice.

We are not reconstructionists. We started off with the
history we had readily available, primarily the practices common in
Greece and Rome during the classical period and our Season of the
Tree celebration does reconstruct much of the body of ritual done in
Rome as the Meglamensia as a celebration of that. Our goal, from the
start, was to restore Mother Goddess theology and practices as if
they had not been interrupted for some 1600 years by the attempt to
erase us from history by the Catholic church. In order to do that we
had to dig deeply into the prior Mother Goddess traditions stretching
far back into pre-history, extract the essence and build from that.
It is an ongoing process that although I started, is being continued
by some of our younger priestesses, one of whom is pursuing that as
the basis of her Doctorate.

We are not “Dianics”. Living in a patriarchy and
coming from a history where the priestesses were required to be
female bodied many confuse us with Dianic practice. Unlike Dianics,
we encourage men to participate in our rituals, share our lives and
undergo our Mysteries. Yes, we are decidedly pro woman, feminists
and about female empowerment but we also acknowledge the historic
fact that every single Mother Goddess tradition had transsexual
priestesses as well as non-transsexual women priestesses. Dianics
can be quite opposed to this fact. Dianics do not allow men to
participate in their rituals.

And let's be frank, we are NOT Wiccan. Modern Pagan
practices are often confused with Wicca as established by Gardner and
later Alex Sanders. I won't get into my own opinions of that
practice today which frequently has little in common with it's own
rather late to the party roots and is quickly becoming a generic term
rather than a specific one. Wicca depends on “the craft” at it's
roots and if it has an actual theology, I have failed to find it
because it was reclaimed for the most part from European folk magic
and middle ages ceremonial magic that arose as opposition to the
Catholic church. The so called rede came directly from Alister
Crowley, the self styled most evil man in the world. The so called
law of three fold return to discourage so called left hand path work
(dark magic) is a hold over of the carrot and stick theology of
Christianity and based in fear that the quite old association of
cursing and witchcraft not be revisited upon them. And finally, in
the original Wicca, one had to be initiated into a coven and there
was no such thing as solo practice and self initiation, ideas
introduced by Scott Cunningham.

The Cybeline Revival is unique in modern Paganism. We
are basically monotheistic which I would argue Christianity never
was. We re-introduced the ancient practice of Pagan monasticism, but
just as in the ancient times not a cloistered monasticism, but very
much a part of the world. One does not seek the priestesshood in our
tradition as some sort of spiritual merit badge but rather a life
long commitment to service towards others so our congregants are just
as important in their own right as the priestesses. We don't serve
up answers because we believe the Goddess is eminent in all so we
teach people to awaken the Goddess within themselves. That means you
have to do the work yourself, we just help you do so. Not a recipe
for those who were raised in a world that encourages instant
gratification to flock to us so we expect our growth to be slow. We
believe in balance in the world, in spirituality, in all things so
there is a place for light work as well as dark and a time and place
for both.

Many Pagan writers have talked about the things that
are at the root of our theology, we practice it.